Race & Justice News: Race, Incarceration, and Wage Growth

Race and incarceration have a compounded effect on wage growth

A study by Christopher Lyons & Becky Pettit published in Social Problems and reviewed in Criminological Highlights examined the compounded effect of race and incarceration on wages of black and white residents of Washington State. The researchers tracked the average hourly wages of individuals for two years prior to incarceration and two years after release. Blacks not only tended to earn less than whites, but after incarceration the gap between the hourly wages of blacks and whites increased. This widening gap occurred even when various other factors were controlled. These included employment history, education, offense type, length of sentence, and age. The study also found that a favorable work history did not help those who had been incarcerated as much as it did those who had not been incarcerated.